Copyrights 2
Which one of these is not protected by copyright?
Art
Box Design
Game title
Story
Game Title
What is a penalty for trademark infringement?
injunction, recall or removal of items, Monetary Damages, possible personal liability.
What is the right of publicity, and how does it differ from a privacy claim?
The right of publicity allows individuals to control and exploit the commercial use of their name, likeness, image, or persona, whereas a privacy claim typically involves protecting against unwanted intrusions into one’s personal life.
Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
who are the key players in the console gaming
What legal concept allows developers to prevent the unauthorized copying of source code in video games?
What is copyright protection?
What part of the constitution codifies Copyright and Patent protections?
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8
Explain the Rogers v. Grimaldi test and how it applies to the use of trademarks in video games or other expressive works.
The Rogers test balances trademark law with First Amendment rights. It allows the use of a trademark in expressive works, like video games, if (1) the use has artistic relevance to the underlying work and (2) it does not explicitly mislead consumers about the source or content of the work. This test is often applied in cases where game titles or character names resemble real-world trademarks but are used creatively rather than commercially.
In which case did the court hold that using a robot resembling a celebrity's persona in an advertisement could violate the right of publicity, even though the celebrity's actual likeness wasn't used?
What is Vanna White v. Samsung Electronics?
Tencent, Supercell, King
Key players in Mobile Gaming
What is the significance of work-for-hire agreements in video game development?
Work-for-hire agreements ensure that the employer, not the individual developer, owns the IP created during employment.
In what way does the scènes à faire doctrine limit copyright protection in video games
The scènes à faire doctrine denies copyright protection to elements that are standard, stock, or common to a particular genre because they are dictated by the nature of the work itself.Elements like spaceships and laser guns were considered scènes à faire since they were inevitable within the genre.
What would you call unfair competition in the trademark space for the UK
passing off
Explain the transformative use test and its application in rights of publicity cases involving video games.
The transformative use test assesses whether a work sufficiently transforms a celebrity’s likeness into something more than a mere imitation. If the use is sufficiently transformative, it may be protected by the First Amendment. In video games, courts examine whether the likeness adds expressive content or serves purely commercial purposes,
Free-to Play, Subscription Services, In- game Advertising?
What are monetization models?
What legal document must game developers typically sign when distributing their games through platforms like Steam or PlayStation Network?
What is an end-user license agreement (EULA) or a distribution agreement?
Explain the abstraction-filtration-comparison test in copyright law. How is this test applied to determine copyright infringement in video games?
he abstraction-filtration-comparison test is used to determine whether two works are substantially similar in their protectable elements. The test is broken down into three steps:
E.S.S Entertainment 2000 v. Rock Star Videos, Inc., What did the court find using the Rogers Test?
The club was only in the background and found that the threshold for artistic relevance only needs to be more than zero which the creation of the LA atmosphere met
How did the court rule in the Lohan v. Take-Two Interactive case concerning the Grand Theft Auto V character allegedly based on Lindsay Lohan?
The court rejected Lohan’s claim, ruling that video game characters do not fall under New York’s right of publicity statute for advertising or trade.
Google Stadia, NVIDIA GeForce, Microsoft xCloud
Cloud gaming
What is the primary international treaty governing copyright protections across multiple countries?
What is the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works?
Under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), what kind of protection is provided to online game platforms against copyright infringement claims from third-party content?
What can the host do if the content is infringing?
What is safe harbor protection under Section 512?
Takedown.
What is the Risk Analysis for using a trademark in a game?
•Is any TM used in the title of the game or within the game or in marketing/publicity materials not owned by Developer?
•If yes, have rights been obtained?
•If no, has the mark been changed or modified?
•Would it cause consumer confusion?
•What is the purpose it serves in the work?
How do post-mortem rights of publicity differ across states like California, Tennessee, and New York?
California recognizes post-mortem rights for up to 70 years, Tennessee for perpetuity, while New York only recently adopted post-mortem rights, limited to individuals who died after May 2021.
Valve, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo
First Party
How did the court rule in the Lohan v. Take-Two Interactive case concerning the Grand Theft Auto V character allegedly based on Lindsay Lohan?
The court rejected Lohan’s claim, ruling that video game characters do not fall under New York’s right of publicity statute for advertising or trade.